The Handcar and the Steamer
by Zabbie Q
Summary: A silly (and somewhat anachronistic) retelling of Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare"


Once upon a time (probably before the 1950s but definitely after the 1910s, or so historians believe) there was a young racing steamer named Ramblin' McCoy who lived on the old Kansas City Central. He was strong and handsome with a love for blues music, Louis Armstrong records, and cute sleeping cars who bore a strong resemblance to Ella Fitzgerald. Being strong, handsome, and a champion racer, it was no surprise that McCoy was quite popular among the local rolling stock - also not surprising, it was not long before success went to his head.

Like many stereotypical jocks in fiction, McCoy thought he had gotten too big for his iron britches and so began to lord it over the other vehicles. The steamers who showed up to race him had their dates stolen away by McCoy's charm. ("No resistance to my pistons," he would gloat as the coaches swooned into his arms in front of their now uncoupled beaus.) AC engines and their DC grandparents were "humorously" dragged away from their electric lines to areas of the yard where they were now as weak as coaches (and if that wasn't bad enough, they were then forced to listen to bad celebrity impressions). Freight trucks were teased. Work trucks were pranked. If McDonald's had had self-serve soda back then, historians agree that McCoy would have probably been the guy to ask for a water cup only to fill it with Fanta. (This was considerably long after McDonald's, as any historian will tell you.)

"It's not like a celebrity's actions ever have lasting consequences," said McCoy smugly to his haters. He was a lot like Greaseball in that regard (except nine out of ten historians agree that this was before Greaseball).

Finally, one vehicle got tired of his shenanigans and decided to do something about it. His name was Squeaky the handcar - who looked like a small flat car with flat boards on his shoulders and a hand crank for a headpiece - and he lived in the same yard as McCoy, doing what odd jobs he could since the Kansas City Central had scrapped so many of his kind.

"Stories about machines sure do get Orwellian once you start personifying everything," observed Squeaky as he swept up the trash McCoy left behind. (The steamer never recycled. Of course, nobody recycled back then, but if they had, historians agree that McCoy wouldn't have.)

Squeaky had been teased quite a lot by the younger McCoy, who seemed to believe that since he would always be younger than Squeaky, that meant he would always be young in general and never be an abandoned relic of a previous age. However, things came to a head after a badly timed short joke (short jokes existed back then - but then again, when in history have they ever not existed?) At this ill-fated flyting, Squeaky challenged McCoy to a race.

The steamer laughed at his would-be opponent. "Seriously, little fella, I'd be halfway to Chicago before you're even out of the yard on those tiny legs."

"Size matters not," said Squeaky, "for my ally is the Force - uh, literary comeuppance. You in?"

"Well, it's not like an underdog ever won a race against the obvious champion in fiction before, so why not?" reasoned McCoy, and the race was set.

* * *

Squeaky said he would arrange everything, so all McCoy had to do was show up on the day they agreed upon (which he did). Squeaky had even gotten a track marshal to referee the starting line, and he said there was a marshal waiting for them at the finish line in the north.

"I just realize that I don't know where we're racing to," remarked McCoy. "I hope that won't be too important."

"Probably won't," said Squeaky a little too sweetly, causing McCoy to ask for a peek at the route which Squeaky had mapped out (this was before GPS, so of course they used maps), and the steamer was surprised. It was quite a long way, stretching over almost the whole length of the Kansas City Central. Such a trip would require McCoy to refuel his coal and water three times, as Squeaky had been kind enough to mark on the map.

"I should probably be suspicious, but since there's absolutely no way a handcar could finish this route before me, this is gonna be fun," said McCoy. "After all, when has the number three ever been important in fiction?"

At noon the two racers skated up to the starting line. The marshal raised his pistol in the air. Three, two, one! _Bang!_

 _Chug-chug-chug!_ McCoy flew forward, pumping his arms.

 _Squeak, squeak_ went the handcar's crank as he rolled forward at a pace that a bicycle would have laughed at - and many of the spectating rolling stock did. However, Squeaky ignored them, chuckling quietly to himself.

Meanwhile, McCoy zoomed down the line without even breaking a sweat. He came to the first fueling station, which provided both a chute for coal and a tower for water. He filled both his tank and his tender with ease, but since McCoy was confident of his victory, he decided to stop and enjoy a nice rest. The fueling station was next to a peaceful river, and there were plenty of clouds to look at, and that was what McCoy did. After all, what could possibly keep him from winning today?

"Avast, ye matey!" came a cry.

McCoy turned and saw that there were boats tied to some nearby docks. Like trains, the boats looked like humanoid crafts, but instead of legs with wheels beneath their feet, the boats looked like they had water donuts around their middle (but this was in fact their decks and hulls), and they used the docks as tables for their lunch of fish sticks. (Historians agree that fish sticks existed then.)

"Care to stop for a spell and sing some blues songs, ye landlubber?" asked the boats.

"Huh, didn't I humiliate you guys when we raced up the river that one time?" wondered McCoy.

"Water under the bridge," the captain said with a far-too-quick smile. "Don't ye want to try our fried fish sticks? They be excellent with tartar sauce."

"Well, that's awful neighborly of you," said McCoy. "After all, Ma always said to trust Greeks bearing gifts." So, he stopped to eat and taught them the rules of blues music. When the boats got bored with slow-tempo repetitious music, they switched to fast-tempo repetitious music and began to sing sea shanties, and McCoy found out just exactly what things you could do with a drunken sailor ear-ly in the morning.

Meanwhile, Squeaky the handcar (who was still a main character in this story) squeaked on. At long last he arrived at the fueling station, and he squeaked right past McCoy and the boats. Unfortunately, McCoy looked up during a rousing chorus of "Blow the Man Down" and jumped to his wheels. He zipped ahead of Squeaky with a laugh and did not stop until he reached the next fueling station.

"Could you imagine if that handcar actually won this race?" chuckled McCoy. "That's as silly as me getting what's coming to me from the machines I've wronged."

"Yoohoo!" came the conveniently timed call of a cinema car - a type of carriage with a movie theater (the Kansas City Central had more cinema cars than any other line in the world, as any reliable history book on the railroad will tell you). McCoy recognized this coach. She had been the race partner of an electric engine he had previously tormented, but she smiled so sweetly to him now that he went over to her, not feeling the least bit suspicious.

The coach stood outside a shed that was covered in movie advertisements (for it was her movie theater). One announced the film, _New Orleans_ , which featured Louis Armstrong.

"How much for a ticket?" McCoy asked the cinema car.

"If you're a steamer in the middle of a race with a slow handcar and your name begins with an M, it's free!" replied the cinema car.

"What luck!" said McCoy. "But wait. Didn't I humiliate your boyfriend in that one race?"

"No reason we can't spontaneously move past that," said the cinema car nervously. "Uh, popcorn?"

"I see no way this can go wrong," said McCoy, and he went into the shed where he enjoyed himself immensely.

Meanwhile, the handcar squeaked on, and eventually he past the theater after the fifth showing of the film. (McCoy said it was his new favorite.) Unfortunately, the steamer came out to stretch his legs, and he heard the squeaking up ahead.

 _Whoosh!_ McCoy was off again, making a mental note to check out that cinema car's theater again as he easily passed Squeaky.

He came to the final fueling station, which separated him from the last leg of his journey. This time the fueling station rested beside a coach yard. However, just as he was reaching for the hose to refill his water tank, McCoy realized that this yard looked _too_ familiar.

"Merciful Baldwin…" whispered McCoy. He made a mad grab for the dispenser for the coal chute, but the man did not even have a chance.

"Long time no see, Ramblin' McCoy," said a voice the steamer knew all too well.

McCoy whirled around and saw a pretty sleeping car leaning against the fuel station. She swore a red velvet dress with a petticoat of Irish linen with crystal chandeliers for earrings. McCoy gulped. "H-Hi there, Belle." He backed away, releasing the fueling equipment. "You're not mad - are ya?"

"Why would I be mad?" asked Belle. "Who cares if you tricked me into leaving my fiancé so that he couldn't enter the race only to never call me the next day? That's just life. What possible consequences could that have for a pre-Nineteen-Sixties woman?" She pointed to her nearby shed, giving him a look that commanded obedience. "Want to come in for some tea?"

"...Against my better judgment," answered McCoy, following her nervously into her shed.

Several hours later, McCoy was still sitting stiffly in Belle's parlor, drinking a fifth pot of tea he really didn't want to choke down. Belle kept showing him photos of a little train boy who reminded McCoy of several of his relatives for some reason. (Why did this strange kid have Granny McCoy's nose?)

Meanwhile, Squeaky came to the final fueling station, but this time he moved as quietly as he could past Belle's shed. Once he was sure he was out of earshot, he started pumping his way as fast as he could toward the distant finish line.

Five minutes later, Belle finally closed her photo album. "Won't you stay for supper?" asked Belle with a look McCoy didn't like. "Rusty should be home from Train Scouts any time now. I can't wait for you to meet him. He was built nine months after the last time we saw each other - to the day."

"Uh, I should try finishing that race now! Toodles!" He started to get up, but Belle grabbed his arm.

"You know, child support has been around for quite awhile by this point in history," said she. "You'll just love meeting with my lawyer to discuss the matter!"

McCoy broke free and charged out the door, completely ignoring the unused fueling station, and put all his might into getting to the finish line. Without fire or water, he was soon as weak as a coach and straining all his important internal organs. "Worth it!" huffed McCoy.

Nearly half an hour later, McCoy's strained chugging at last yielded sight of the finish line. He put the last of his strength into propelling himself forward, right past the marshal, over the line -

\- only to see Squeaky already standing there, smiling. "What kept you?" asked Squeaky.

McCoy summoned all his dignity to respond - and promptly collapsed upon the track.

"Teamwork!" cried the boats, the cinema car, and Belle (who had caught up by then), and the vehicles all high fived. (While human-centric educators would have you believe that high fives were originated by baseball players in the 1970s, railroad historians insist that trains on the KCC were already high fiving each other at this time.)

Squeaky never raced again after that, and he retired to a railroad museum where he remains comfortably to this day. As for McCoy, it was said of him that he was a changed man after that, and that his experience had made into a humble train and a better friend.

Unfortunately, experience came too late and was among the few things that he had left by the end of it.

Shortly after this time came the dieselization of the railroads. The diesel manufacturers picked up the story of the race and used it as propaganda in their smear campaign against the coal-burning competition. Steamers were fired across the country and soon became second-class citizens. The Kansas City Central converted to diesels as well, but unfortunately those engines started to form street gangs that terrorized the other machines, caused lots of property damage, and refused to floss. As such, profits for the KCC plummeted, and the company went bankrupt and became a forgotten fallen flag that many today think is fictitious. As a result of the KCC closing, the cinema car lost her job while the boats lost the business they had had with the railroad, leading to them needing to join a bad temp agency.

"Worth it," agreed all who had been involved.

With the KCC gone, Belle couldn't take care of her son, so she forced McCoy to provide for Rusty while she went off to rethink her life. "Poppa" McCoy and Rusty wandered the railroads as vagabonds until Control hired them, but they were only allowed a small amount of shelter. Poppa grew old and had to retire, leading to his son needing to work long hours as a switch engine to support them both. This constant exposure to the elements, combined with the poor shelter, led to the ironically named Rusty to become the unironically named Rusty.

And that (as historians agree) is how Poppa ruined Rusty's life.

THE END

Xxx

A/N:

A humble acknowledgement toward William Goldman's sense of humor in his book, _The Princess Bride_. There is a whole running gag about when stuff existed in regards to the timeline of the story.

While Poppa's Kansas City Central seems to be fictitious (the closest I could find is the Kansas City Southern - which is kinda odd since the other logos used in the show are/were real companies), cinema/movie-theater cars on the other hand were real, albeit rare. Also, in the Australian/Japan tour, the set had a river boat as part of the scenery, suggesting that maybe Control has toy boats too. Use that knowledge however you will, fanfic writers.


End file.
